No time to rest on laurels as MU preps for Nebraska

Tuesday

After masterfully calling plays in your team’s milestone victory over the top team in the BCS standings, how exactly do you, the offensive coordinator, choose to celebrate?

SATURDAY

Missouri at Nebraska, 2:30 p.m. (KMIZ)

A couch, a TV and a Diet Coke.

Such is life in college football when the descent of one week quickly turns into another uphill climb toward the next. The valley in between, when there’s time to either commiserate or rejoice, is always fleeting.

For Missouri’s David Yost, the second-year coordinator whose inventive game plan helped shape Saturday’s 36-27 win over Oklahoma, the postgame party began and ended in the locker room.

“That’s the greatest experience, being in the locker room with your team,” Yost said. “You celebrate the victory and how well they played and how hard they played. The excitement and the joy, it’s a great situation to be in.

“Then I drove home, went in, flipped the TV on, watched the news. I was wondering if they’d replay our game. … And I had a Diet Coke, sat there on the couch, then saw how late it was and went to bed.”

You might say that’s Yost letting his hair down.

By Sunday morning, he was back in the office grading film of Missouri’s first win over the Sooners in 12 years, reviewing the highlights and corrections with players and prepping for the next challenge: No. 14 Nebraska, the team that torpedoed MU’s 2009 season.

This time, though, the seventh-ranked Tigers (7-0, 3-0 Big 12) — up to No. 6 in the BCS standings — head to Lincoln armed with a revamped weapon that Yost uncovered Saturday: a downhill running attack. And it didn’t happen by accident.

With alignments designed to take away Missouri’s bubble-screen passes to its slot receivers, the Sooners left the middle of the field exposed. And that’s where Yost attacked with runs, resulting in 178 rushing yards on a season-high 39 attempts.

By Yost’s count, four or five of those attempts used a vintage run from MU’s playbook, a tighter zone play designed to slam the tailback between the guards rather than the looping horizontal runs that take longer to hit the point of attack.

“Really, that was the original zone we ran before we moved to the spread,” Yost said. “That was the Brad Smith zone play.”

That wasn’t the only twist to Missouri’s running attack. In some short-yardage situations, quarterback Blaine Gabbert took the snap from under center with two extra linemen in the backfield as extra blockers. Several times the Tigers used an unbalanced line, adding Jack Meiners as a third tackle to block for the run, including MU’s first play from scrimmage, a 20-yard dash by De’Vion Moore. Other times, MU motioned a second tailback into the backfield, faked a handoff to one and gave the ball to the other on a misdirection play that had the Sooners lunging in the wrong direction. That play sprung Moore on a 39-yard run midway through the fourth quarter, on which Moore carried safety Quinton Carter for the final 15 yards.

“I didn’t know whether he was trying to tackle me or get the ball,” said Moore, who ran 10 times for a game-high 73 yards, the most by a Missouri running back against Oklahoma since Devin West ran for 93 yards and two touchdowns in 1998. “I just knew I wasn’t on the ground yet, so I had to keep running. That’s what we’re taught to do: If you’re not on the ground, keep your feet moving and protect the football.”

The Tigers finished that drive with another unique running play, a 1-yard touchdown run by backup quarterback James Franklin as Gabbert lined up as a wide receiver.

“We actually had” the play “set down there for Blaine doing it,” Yost said. “But figuring at that point in the game we were probably in a position where the quarterback’s going to keep it, we put James in. He does a good job getting downhill on this play.”

Yost downplayed the playbook’s overall impact on Missouri’s rushing success, giving credit instead to Missouri’s offensive line for controlling the line of scrimmage.

“We put in a couple new wrinkles just to get more north and south. But a lot of it was better blocking,” center Tim Barnes said. “We just gave” the tailbacks “big holes so they didn’t have to run far to make a cut.”

INJURY UPDATE: Just when Missouri’s front four got defensive end Aldon Smith back healthy from a broken leg, the Tigers have lost nose tackle Dominique Hamilton for the rest of the season with a broken ankle. Hamilton suffered the injury late in the first quarter when a double-team block pushed the junior to the bottom of a pile. Hamilton, MU’s most experienced interior lineman with 19 starts, underwent surgery on Sunday. Sophomore Jimmy Burge is expected to make his first career start in Hamilton’s place.

Hamilton becomes the sixth regular in MU’s rotation sidelined this season as injuries and suspensions have tested the depth for coordinator Dave Steckel’s defense, which still manages to rank fifth nationally in scoring defense, allowing 13.1 points per game.

“Stec mentioned the other day that we haven’t had our entire defense together for the entire season,” linebacker Andrew Gachkar said. “So I think it speaks to the amount of depth we have. Dominique is a great player, and we’re really going to miss him. But Jimmy Burge is good. So are” backups “Marvin Foster and Brendan Donaldson. We’re not worried about that at all.”

ADMITTING DEFEAT: Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops told reporters yesterday that his decision to punt with less than three minutes left against MU was made with poll voters in mind. The Sooners trailed by nine points and faced fourth-and-10 from their own 4-yard line when Stoops called for a punt.

“It’s a long year. Who knows how poll people look at scores?” Stoops said.

HONOR ROLL: Gabbert was named one of 16 semifinalists for the Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award, along with three others from the Big 12: Oklahoma’s Landry Jones, Baylor’s Robert Griffin III and Nebraska’s Taylor Martinez.

The O’Brien selection committee will trim the list to three finalists on Nov. 22.

Also, Missouri was named the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl national team of the week as voted by members of the Football Writers Association of America.

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